MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Cynthia Villar sought yesterday measures to strengthen the country’s wildlife conservation and protection mechanisms to safeguard natural resources and prevent pandemics in the future.
Villar, who chairs the Senate committee on environment, natural resources and climate change, warned that constant exploitation of wild fauna and their habitats has been raising the risk of zoonotic disease transmission.
“There were studies suggesting that COVID-19 virus may have originated from bats and that the first people infected were traders in bat meat, who may have subsequently visited the Huanan seafood market, where the virus spread was first traced,” Villar said.
She said the need to fortify the country’s wildlife resources is more critical now as Filipinos continue to experience the ill effects of the COVID-19 virus.
Despite the existence of Republic Act 9147 or the Wildlife Protection and Conservation Act for more than 20 years, the senator said there has been no letup in wildlife crimes that have evolved and grown.
The trade and transport of wildlife species have become wide-scale and transnational in nature. Also, those involved in wildlife crimes continue to innovate, posing serious challenges to enforcement authorities and to the country’s existing policies and mechanisms, she said.
She said her Senate Bill 125, or the Revised Wildlife Resource Conservation and Protection Act, seeks to address the evolving nature of wildlife offenses and fortify the mechanisms in place to afford better protection to wildlife resources.
While there were successful arrests of wildlife violators and confiscation of wildlife specimens over the years, Villar said many other violations remain rampant and undetected.